DubR: Thank you so much for your kind words and expressions of enlightenment about gays.
Drewcoul: I realize it's hard to understand how a man can be attracted to another man, but ask yourself, How can a man be attracted to a woman? Think about it. As kids, boys don't want anything to do with girls. Boys and girls, men and women have very little in common, basically being raised in different cultures -- thus, the expression "Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars." Yet at some point during puberty, most develop an attraction to the other. The truth is, humans have very little control over whom we are attracted to. In tests, blindfolded straight men have become arroused after sniffing samples of women's pheromones, but feel nothing when sniffing the pheromones of men, even though they didn't know which was which. On the other hand, gay men felt nothing when sniffing pheromones of women, but became aroused with sniffing those of other men. They didn't choose to become aroused, gays, like straights, are just hard-wired that way, it was out of their control. Gay people accept the sexual relationships of opposite-sex couples because that is what we are exposed to and it's not considered taboo. We don't fantasize or obsess over the sexual activities of straight people. Gay people look forward to the day when homophobes stop obsessing over the sexual activities of homosexuals, and focus instead on the love and companionship such relationships provide.
mamochan13: You state that as a JW, you believed it was possible to cure gays. After all, you say, "the Bible says 'that's what some of you were.'" That text in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 has always confused me. It uses nouns when stating that fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, greedy persons, drunkards, revilers, extortioners would not inherit God’s kingdom. But instead of saying "homosexuals," it merely says "men who lie with men." The Governing Body uses the weak excuse that there was no word for homosexual in Greek in Paul's time. But Bible writers have been known to coin words or in the very least use words from other languages when necessary to explain themselves. So why is this an issue? Because that would mean he wasn't just directing his words to homosexuals. Recent and more accurate studies reveal that 3.5 percent of Americans are gay and lesbian. However, 10 percent of straight Americans admit they have had sexual relations with others of the same sex. This is probably similar in most other countries as well. In other words, there are more straight -- and often married -- people who are having same-sex relations than gays and lesbians. So was Paul speaking to gays or straights in 1 Cor. 6? This is important to know because you can't apply Paul's words in our time if you don't even know what or to whom he was referring to originally.
